A vet­er­an Ger­man dip­lo­mat was named the new EU spe­cial rep­re­sent­a­tive for the Mid­dle East peace proc­ess by the EU For­eign Min­is­ters. Andre­as Rein­icke took up his new posi­tion on 1 Feb­ru­a­ry for­mal­ly inher­it­ing Bel­gian Mark Otte, whose man­date, how­e­ver, has expired almost a year ago. He will serve at his new posi­tion until 30 June 2013.

Cur­rent­ly ambas­sa­dor of Ger­ma­ny in Syr­ia, Rein­icke is a dip­lo­mat of more than 25 years' expe­ri­ence and has devot­ed most of his career to the Mid­dle East. Before his nom­i­na­tion in Damas­cus he head­ed the Euromed and Mid­dle East depart­ment of the Ger­man for­eign min­is­try, and had also been sta­tioned at both the embas­sies in Tel Aviv and Ramal­lah for a cer­tain peri­od.

Rein­icke will have the role of EU envoy in the Quar­tet, con­sist­ing of the US, the EU, the UN and Rus­sia, for the Mid­dle East. Until now, the role had been entrust­ed on a tem­po­rary basis to Hel­ga Schmid, the dep­u­ty sec­re­tary gen­er­al of the Euro­pe­an dip­lo­mat­ic serv­ice in charge of "polit­i­cal affairs". Accord­ing to the con­clu­sions at the meet­ing of For­eign Min­is­ters, the new EU rep­re­sent­a­tive will have the task of "con­trib­ut­ing to meet­ing the tar­gets of EU pol­i­cy in the region, which include peace, the two-state solu­tion and a solu­tion to con­flicts between Isra­el­is and Syr­i­ans and between Isra­el­is and the Leb­a­nese."

The EU High Rep­re­sent­a­tive for For­eign Pol­i­cy, Cath­er­ine Ash­ton, wel­comed the appoint­ment of Rein­icke, say­ing that it "under­lines our height­en­ed com­mit­ment towards the Mid­dle East peace proc­ess," and call­ing him "a dip­lo­mat of great expe­ri­ence and with great knowl­edge of the Mid­dle East." In this peace proc­ess, Ash­ton con­clud­ed, "togeth­er with his Quar­tet part­ners, he has a key role to play in efforts to bring back to the nego­ti­at­ing table all par­ties involved."

Rein­ick­e's appoint­ment came on the eve of a vis­it by Ash­ton to Isra­el and the Pal­es­tin­i­an ter­ri­to­ries, hop­ing to con­vince both sides to return to the nego­ti­at­ing table. The EU has recent­ly angered Isra­el over leaked EU reports crit­i­cis­ing the con­tin­u­ing con­struc­tion of set­tle­ments in Pal­es­tin­i­an ter­ri­to­ries.